It's a little much to call it Steely Dan in terms of contrast but there's something not too far removed going on.

Ruler of the Night works like a song cycle studying the oddly aching beauty of misery.

He'd rather lay back and sings songs of love won and lost, and even if that means Love Is Everything isn't necessarily ambitious, it is remarkably satisfying.

Built on Glass isn't so much limited as it is a wonderful mood piece, so think calm and cool with purpose, and then get hip to the restrained and resonating sound of Faker.

Here her vocals are resoundingly clear, and her lyrics are sharp and direct, sometimes to a startling degree.

Articulation displays West's skills at letting human emotions guide his technical explorations, matching intuition with precision to produce gripping, resonant music.

There Is No End delivers more evidence of that. Taeger and Taurelle fully comprehended Allen's musicality and embraced its kaleidoscopic dimensions. As such, it is rendered free of the misdirected, sometimes jagged and piecemeal conceits that litter other artists' posthumous offerings.

Consistently theatrical but intimate, the song increases in volume, adding components like strummed guitar and active tom drums as Savage's plea -- "Stop haunting me/Please/Just leave me be" -- gets more insistent. While the rest of in|FLUX maintains that song's often captivating sense of brewing urgency and poignancy, arrangements alter as it passes through even sparser balladry ("I Can Hear the Birds Now," "Hungry"), skittering, full-kit indie rock ("Pavlov's Dog," "Crown Shyness"), the eventual acoustic cacophony of "Say My Name," and an art-funky title track.

End incorporates a lot of the touches and techniques that made The Wilderness stand out in the group's discography, from rippling electronics to post-minimalist repetition.

It's ["Vacancy"] an ace slow jam, as are many of the equally flavorful and coquettish songs that surround it -- the slinking "Mobbin in DC," the doo-wop-tinged "Under the Moon," the weightless "Dreaming," and so forth.

It's a special work, one that might require several thorough spins -- across a long stretch of time -- to be fully appreciated by those who love Cole's hit singles.

Overall, there is a fine balance of sounds, feelings, and textures on the album, enough to make Hospitality both a vindication of promise already displayed by the band and hope for further greatness.

We Are Nots may not be the last word in the phantom subgenre of weird punk, but if you want to know how to make your punk weird in the right way, you would be well advised to give Nots your attention.

The impressive thing about Strange Little Birds is how it feels simultaneously familiar and fresh, a record that echoes the past without being trapped by it.

On Coming Apart, she comes into herself.

Moving gracefully between stretched-out and melancholic space rock sprawl and frothing explosions of psych rock power, Bo Ningen display complete control of their seemingly unhinged muse, creating an always colorful album that travels a spectrum of sounds based on other planets as well as the depths of the band's collective nervous system.

Simple Minds have finally come to terms with all the fragments of their musical identity, focused them in a complementary manner, and delivered a whole with an unapologetic pop savvy and flair. It is easily their most consistent offering since Once Upon a Time.

There's an organic, painted desert beauty to the album, and its drifting moods have an unhurried feel that may be due to its lengthy creation (the trio carved out time to record it over the course of nearly five years).

These are chilling sounds from a dark place that, nonetheless, shelter the listener. Between the European and stateside physical releases of the album, Cooper passed away. Knowledge of that could only intensify the album's most passive spins.

There are moments of impossible beauty (“Owl of Love”), dense, but structured dissonance (“Adages of Cleansing”), and of course, whimsical, classically minded, indie folk (“On the Edge”), that when consumed all together, feel like a perfectly executed mash-up of Aaron Copland, Dead Can Dance, Bill Frisell, and Shirley Collins.

In these, guitarist Brett Gurewitz's songwriting seems more fitting for the Gin Blossoms or Lemonheads than a rapid-fire punk group, but it's a change.

Bison B.C.'s creations for Lovelessness largely succeed on the strength of those imaginative arrangements and by proving themselves improbably infectious despite their brute façade.

Partie Traumatic is a very good debut that manages to earn a huge chunk of the hype that was thrown willy-nilly in the band's direction.

When the results are as fun as this album is at its best, it's hard to slam them too much for being derivative; better just to enjoy Friendly Fires as fleeting fun.

Remy's greatest gift has always been her unique ability to dismantle and reassemble the pop form in a single song, and Gem is the most vivid document of that gift yet.

As the title implies, it may take the 1975 a while to get to the point on I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It, but when they do, the results are revelatory.

Bliss Release is perhaps a little too derivative to justify the classic status it's been afforded in the band's homeland, but it's still a delightfully charming debut, made even more impressive by their hastily assembled beginnings.

The sonic growth and confidence White Rabbits display here prove they're moving in the right direction.

It's a brilliant debut and immediately vaults Ashworth and SASAMI to the head of the class of 2019.

A relaxed and hooky sophomore album with 2025's Hickey.

A fully realized summer record from the street to the beach to the campfire.

Arriving at a time when so many artists are inspired by his music, Lost Themes III: Alive After Death proves Carpenter is still one of a kind.

It's brief and even a little slight, but it's almost as much fun to listen to as it must have been to make.

For a band that has evolved from screamo to such thoughtful artistry, The Canyon is a stunning offering.

In Rubin's hands, Seeing Things plays like a songwriter playing his newest songs in your living room--a seductive feeling that no Wallflowers record ever captured, which is an excellent reason for Dylan to step out on his own.

Teaming up with some fresh collaborators seems to have done Pollard a world of good after recording the bulk of his post-GBV work with Todd Tobias handling all the instruments; Moen and Slusarenko don't bring a striking level of chops to Brown Submarine, Boston Spaceships' debut album, but their work has an organic feel and a natural energy that helps these sessions sound like the work of a real band.

Gag Order discards these pop niceties because it's designed as a purge, one that delivers catharsis for the artist without much consideration for the audience.

This is a document -- nothing more, nothing less -- and as such it's charming, beautiful, ragged, and honest.

Sloan are craftsman who weld their good taste into charming miniatures, and if The Double Cross retains a hint of familiarity--not due to the source material but rather the workmanship--the group's level of skill assures that this is as comfortably satisfying as its predecessors.

It took some goading from My Morning Jacket members Carl Broemel, Bo Koster, Patrick Hallahan, and Tom Blankenship, who also serve as the backup band, but Showalter found his voice again, and the resulting 11-track set strikes a winning balance between dusty, soul-bearing Midwest folk and sanguine heartland rock.

Homespun creativity has rarely sounded bigger -- or better -- than it does on Our Thickness.

For the most part, A Flash Flood of Colour revels in a unique, organized chaos, and while it's a demanding and often exhausting listen, it's a call to arms which the flagging U.K. guitar band scene could do with more of.

The more beneficial mix of songwriting and production collaborators, including Jack Splash, No ID, Rico Love, and Salaam Remi, helps make The MF Life superior to the debut in every way.

This is indie pop at its absolute finest, Gold-Bears telling their own story of resentment and an always slippery grip on love with the same melancholic charm as some of the many unheard legends of the C-86 scene or the mixtape champions of the American underground.

Olympic Mess is a gripping sound odyssey which bewilders and occasionally perturbs.

Almost a decade into their existence, the So So Glos have matured and tightened their execution, making Kamikaze a huge leap past their already 2014 breakthrough, Blowout. Musically, the album is a pure joy.

It all makes for a more focused--but far from simple--album that's a gorgeous, confident step forward for Illum Sphere.

Skits like "Close Talker" draw out a conflict between Czarface and Doom, but the former seems to be a bit more aggressive--Doom doesn't really seem to fight back, he's just doing his thing, talking sharp and candid like always. In any case, the album is still a whole lot of fun, and shouldn't disappoint fans of either act.

It's a more thoughtful, philosophical King Tuff, for certain, but The Other is far from a downer, with Thomas' individuality and catchy pop sensibilities still intact.

Adam Landry, who produced and engineered the project as well as playing guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums, has done a splendid job helping Morris realize this cycle of songs, and while one might hope Morris feels better the next time he decides to make a record, Dude, the Obscure shows that he gained something worthwhile during his journey through difficult times.

The album as a whole is tender and affectionate, seeming to accept and appreciate even the awkward and unrequited as part of her embrace of complexity and queerness.

It would be too optimistic to hope that the band would have ever made a record as vital and thrilling as Hold on Now, it’s just too bad that they’ve sunk to the level of bland irrelevance so quickly.

As Boeckner repeats the words "I have no feelings" in the last song, he seems to be driving home a point. Prior Handsome Furs outings had a lot more emotion behind them.

Lemon Twigs commit wholeheartedly to the bizarre narrative that Go to School is built on. Leaving no ridiculous tangent or exaggerated flourish unexplored, the result is a larger-than-life spectacle grown from strange but excellent songwriting.

Fingers, Bank Pads & Shoe Prints is another thrilling, occasionally confounding collection that demonstrates why RP Boo is one of Chicago's most unique, innovative producers.

The main reasons to drop a quarter into this video game on wax (or digital download) are the sexy robot song "Nightcall" (which was featured prominently in the film Drive), the dubsteppy victory theme "Protovision," and the assurance that no matter what cool bits of the present are employed, the fetishizing of that 16-bit swagger will remain solid and inspired.

While in the process of embracing more electronics they lose a bit of their organic warmth, particularly compared to their debut, Local Natives hang on to a significant amount of their quirkiness and rhythmic flair.

Most of A Certain Trigger's album tracks sound like singles waiting to be discovered.

Everything sounds livelier, more active. Huisman fills the empty spaces, never over-stuffs them, and the percussion is practically spring-loaded--from several angles--in comparison.

A pleasant and grown but tedious release from a charismatic entertainer and exceptional vocal arranger who is not a great recording artist.

The Switch serves as a potent reminder that experimental music isn't always cerebral. Transfixing, haunting, and lingering, this is some of Body/Head's most emotionally eloquent music.

Entertaining castoffs, but not his best work by far.

The album borders on monochromatic at times (possibly because there are no songs by Graham Lewis, who provided some of Red Barked Tree and Change Becomes Us' finest tracks), yet its subtle subversions are thoroughly Wire, and thoroughly befitting the band at this stage in its career.

Crow hasn't been this free or fine since "Sheryl Crow," but there is an emotional directness on Detours that makes this a progression, not a retreat.

While Long Enough to Leave may lack some of the punch and energy of previous releases, it shows The Mantles developing their own sound and the record grows more and more powerful with each play.

It's a stark, beautiful recording that hopefully proves something to both Lynne and Moorer: That what's here is a new beginning and that there is much more to explore.

Magic Pony Ride is more comforting than challenging, but it's still highly enjoyable, providing a unique view on family life from an artist who has remained inventive for several decades.

While those already enamored with McCombs' lyrical approach and subdued songwriting might find more of immediate value here than the uninitiated, there's a lot to sift through, even for fans, and it might be difficult to keep focus through the entire sometimes befuddling set.

Fans who were wondering if Ward's mainstream successes would yield a stylistic sea change can rest easy, as his signature, sepia-tone demeanor, for better or for worse, remains steadfast.

Meat + Bone may not restore faith in reunions in general, but it does prove that this burly trio has plenty of swagger and sloppy rock and roll left in them.

It's an album only an old pro could make and it's one of the best this ever-reliable singer has ever done.

Rooster Rag doesn't stray too far from the path; it stays right on track, is relatively lean, and amply illustrates all of Little Feat's enduring charms.

For all its expansiveness and ambition, Medicine Man is expertly produced and sequenced; the Bamboos have not only retained their identity, they've created something so passionate, warm, and immediate, it's almost impossible not to be seduced.

If 8Ball always seemed more moonshine than fine wine, Life's Quest suggests he can still get better with age and go down smooth when you let him mellow.

The continuing work of Mika Vainio--especially given his longtime association with Touch for a variety of releases--has been at once reliable and sometimes quite surprising, with a certain restlessness that has served him well in his various explorations in sound. Fe3O4: Magnetite continues this.

With their ever-expanding arsenal of masterfully crafted musical traditions, they prove once more to refuse to be anything less than what they are: one of the most explorative and inexhaustibly creative bands on the planet.

Among the Grey songs drift quite naturally into and out of one another, creating a dreamy, labyrinthine, beguiling, listening experience.

All-Amerikkkan Bada$$ is the sound of a young rapper finding a voice and higher purpose, an exciting and powerfully insightful statement.

For all the varnish Feldmann applied, Hurry Up and Wait still sounds like the Dune Rats, which is good news for all concerned, except perhaps whoever bankrolled the sessions.

Spinning Coin work hard to expand their sound in interesting ways, and the end result of their efforts is an album that's challenging, bracing, and almost defiantly, certainly thrillingly, unique.

While his observations on anxiety are astute, much of the record is given over to the kind of harmless romantic synth pop that does little to distinguish itself among the deluge of similarly smooth pillow talk scattered across the genre. Not quite as left-field as it wants to be, Salvat's follow-up still offers a reasonable amount of pop appeal.

If you want to hear Lucero kick out the jams, When You Found Me will not be your cup of poison, but if you want to hear a great American band bear their souls with fearless grace, this is a must.

Listening to Dylan lead these groups through a loose rendition of Harry Belafonte's "Jamaica Farewell," an extended, almost funky jam on "Long Black Veil," a friendly boogie through "Matchbox," and competing versions of Jimmy C. Newman's Cajun country stomp "Alligator Man" is a hoot, plus there's something almost touching in hearing Bob tentatively sing Paul McCartney's "Yesterday" on the same session where Harrison jammed. Nothing major, then, but the modest pleasures of 1970 are certainly worthwhile.

While much of the album is taken up by experimental mood pieces like these, there's also a significant number of sprawling, progressive tracks.

It's honestly admirable that the Melvins were willing to take a big risk with an album like Five Legged Dog, but the finished product fails more than it succeeds.

Their formula hasn't coagulated yet, and the subtle changes to their sound mark a well-timed soft progression for the group.

Lombardo has complete control over the entire musical picture. This control, combined with ambitious stylistic explorations, keeps an album that's primarily comprised of solo drum performances engaging and dynamic as it travels through its various pockets of intensity and calm.

Highlighted by nuanced ballads, a certain amount of sass, and a dramatic title track with arena rock-ready climaxes, it features production by Alexander 23. His approach also includes touches of alt-R&B stylings on songs like "Poison Poison" that help distinguish Rapp's Beyoncé-informed mix of vulnerable and confident contemporary pop.

Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixxx3 is a logical progression from his hectic early work as genres like dubstep and grime have since appeared to increase the pressure. Extended runs of uptempo numbers are something new for the man, and the album refuses to chill until it takes a breather on track six

It's hard not to shake the suspicion that this album is the closest he's ever been to forgettable.

Besides connecting the dots between the chugging side of Neil Young and the slightly warped alterna-pop of the Flaming Lips, Built to Spill continue releasing some of the most affecting, beguiling indie rock of the 2000s.

The Centre Cannot Hold constantly seems on the verge of collapse, but it never descends into utter chaos. It gets abrasive and engulfing, but it isn't accurate to describe it as a noise album. Frost and his associates expertly harness levels of sheer energy, resulting in a brilliantly forceful, commanding work.

With every manifesto being tempered by a transforming mantra, Generation Indigo is quintessential Styrene.

His growth is evident on every one of Jonny's touching, impressive moments and near-perfect blend of all the sides of the Drums' music -- and that makes his artistic triumph all the sweeter.

They may be eternal adolescents, but they're also true believers in what made rock & roll great in the first place. They won't hide--can't hide--that enthusiasm, and it's contagious on Art Brut vs. Satan.

This is by far +/-'s most mature work to date.

Me and Armini emerges as an album suitable for bookworms and beach bunnies, homebodies and world travelers, dancers and wallflowers. Highly recommended.

Laconic and acidly textured, Delta Kream is a perfect balance of the Black Keys' lo-fi swagger and keen ear for the Mississippi blues traditions that inspired it.